There are many environments which require that a transmission loss be small, characterizable, and/or predictable. For example, in a system for performing a production test on a radio frequency (RF) device under test (DUT), an RF test probe may be used to contact the DUT. The DUT may for example be an integrated circuit board for a wireless communication device.
As shown in FIG. 1, DUT 2 may be placed in RF test fixture 4. RF probe 6 may be mounted in RF test fixture 4 in a position to contact DUT 2. RF probe 6 may be connected by coaxial cable 5 and coaxial cable 3 to RF equipment rack 9. RF equipment rack 9 may include a signal generator 11, a switch 13, a spectrum analyzer 15, and a test controller PC 17. In FIG. 1, coaxial cable 5 is shown in electrical communication with switch 13 through coaxial cable 3. Test controller PC 17 may connect coaxial cable 5 through switch 13 to spectrum analyzer 15 in order to measure the RF transmitting power of DUT 2. Alternatively, test controller PC 17 may connect coaxial cable 5 through switch 13 to signal generator 11 in order to measure the RF receiving sensitivity of DUT 2.
Such measurements may be made during production runs of DUT 2 for quality control purposes.